book and fragrance giveaway: Rebecca
Many authors use pe rfume as a novelistic shorthand for memories awakened in complete recall. A character smells something and it awakens deep memories, or takes him back in time. In Daphne du Maurier’s neo-gothic romance Rebecca , this motif takes a sinister turn. A youung girl marries a widower with an obscure, tragic past and moves to his ancestral estate . She soon discovers that the place is haunted by the presence of the memory of the previous wife, Rebecca. This ‘haunting’ is mostly expressed through smell and fragrance. Azaleas, overpowering, overfeminine, unnaturally-abundant blooms which choke the manor of Manderley, become a symbol of the dead wife’s overpowering femininity. Rebecca even wore a perfume which smelled of azaleas. The hapless new wife discovers traces of perfume on Rebecca’s clothes, which have turned musty with age, she experiences the oppression of the obscure yet present past in the form a choking fog that blights the landscape a...
Comments
Post a Comment
what thinkest thou?